University engineers have figured out how to build an 'invisible' drone — here's the science behind it
Prototype drone spins its entire body up to 25 times per second to blur itself into near-invisibility Phantom Twist's single motor spins the whole airframe in one direction and its propeller in the other AI design pipeline tested 20,000 possible layouts to find the optimal configuration Drones have a visibility problem. Whether they're filming guests at a wedding or hunting for candid shots of nesting birds, the moment a drone is noticed, it can change the behavior of whatever it's observing — wildlife scatters, people act differently, and you end up with iffy results. A team of engineers at Illinois' Northwestern University may have found a way around that, and it has nothing to do with camouflage. Their prototype drone, dubbed " Phantom Twist ," doesn't try to look like its surroundings. Instead, it spins itself into a blur so fast that the human eye simply can...